Notepad ++ is one of my favorite programs. I use it to code, take notes and as an uber clip board – copy/pasting text, ideas, code snippets… It’s my lightweight easy to use swiss army knife. And it has a lot of important stuff […]
Issue: This simple WordPress site was randomly spiking the CPU for over a year at 75-100%. Once every 2-4 days, sometimes every day. Sometimes for five minutes sometimes for an hour. When checking during an event Apache was always the high CPU consumer. As […]
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Is your Dell Latitude laptop hot with the fan continuously running fast and loud for no apparent reason? When you check Task Manager CPU utilization isn’t high as might be expected – no runaway processes that need to be killed, no webpage written for […]
Got me a shiny new AMD Radeon video card and… Issue: AMD doesn’t make individual drivers available for their video cards. The only way to get a driver for your AMD video card is by installing the complete AMD ADRENALIN software suite – did […]
With Koken no longer actively supported I needed to move to another Gallery management system but found it wasn’t possible due to how Koken stored Albums and images – in a completely random nonsensical method with no way to copy, migrate or otherwise export your galleries and files in a way that can be reconstructed into a new photo gallery system.
Issue – Microsoft driver updates. After Windows Update your computer can’t connect to WiFI. No matter what you try – your existing connection that was working before the reboot for Windows update, or a new network like a mobile phone hot spot. You can […]
Issue: Your Lenovo Laptop or tablet display is often dim or dull at 100% maximum brightness in a low light situation, and you don’t have auto brightness turned on. Like Nigel you’re turning (punching!) the brightness key up to 11 but it ain’t happening. […]
You’re happily typing along in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel or PowerPoint and this evil little thing comes from out of nowhere to hover over the text you want to manage and you can’t get rid of it! Heck yeah, that thing, that evil little […]
My Lenovo Yoga 920’s crisp and bright 4k display was often way to dim in low light situations. No problem right, just bump the brightness up from the default power settings while on battery right? F12, F12…. F12! Maybe this thing goes to 110% […]
If your Google Pixel 3 or 3XL is feeling a bit slow you might try changing animation settings in developer mode and disabling Digital Wellbeing. Shortening the animation settings definitely makes all basic UI actions faster, whether you like it or not depends if […]
Issue: May Insider Update to 1903 won’t install: Feature update to Windows 10, version 1903 x64 2019-04. Windows Update shows “Updates available” but with a yellow exclamation mark, a status of “pending download” and the note “We found some issues. Select this message to […]
My good ol steel drum rollers up and blew apart after 22yrs of sweating in front of a fan, headphones cranking power tunes. Not bad at all but time to shop for a new set of rollers to keep my indoor training rolling – […]
Issue: Spotify song volume starts crisp and loud then suddenly drops. Cause: This happens because Spotify decided you needed an Equalizer, made sure it sucked massively and that you didn’t know you had it. Disable the Equalizer Launch Spotify Access Your Library Settings Gear […]
It struck like lightning, hurt like hell and would not go away. Plantar Fasciitis, it is not your friend. I tried a podiatrist. He doctored up my insoles and created an arch padded ankle sleeve to isolate and immobilize the arch. This helped reduce […]
Do you want some hassle free phone migration when you upgrade? Yeah Apple iOS has that. Confirm your device is running the latest OS Backup your old phone to iCloud or iTunes Call to activate your number on new phone (transfer chip first if […]
You know how someone gives you a list and you’re like oh man, it sure woulda been nice had they not gone and made a list in Word or email that’s nothing but text, separated by commas? Yeah that thing. So here’s what to […]
I lookup a lot of computer serial numbers for warranty status and driver updates, WMIC via the command line is quick and easy way to get that info. It’s below with a small collection of other potentially helpful WMIC queries. User SID wmic useraccount […]
Issue: return a Resultant Set of Policy, RSOP, as a user without full local admin rights. Why is this an issue? User Context. To return full results for both Computer and User policies you have to run the command prompt with elevated Admin rights. And […]
Niagara Falls 2018 – Album
Adding a Gmail account to Outlook 2016 is quick and easy. The process requires two steps with Google: Enabling IMAP access and creating an app password which allows Outlook to access Gmail. Then a few quick and easy steps in Outlook – and boom […]
Issue – Lenovo UCSI USB Type-C firmware upgrade failed. USB Type-C ports no longer work and I have a yellow exclamation mark on the UCSI USB Connector Manager in Device Manager. And that means… no more power to the battery. Which is about when you […]
Everyone needs a fresh start now and again right? Clear out the carbon, shake up the cobwebs. yeah well it works for ones and zeros to. A fresh install of Windows!? If your computer seems to be running unusually slow, has crashing or startup/shutdown […]
You’ve purchased a Microsoft Office 365 subscription along with a new computer through Lenovo or another computer manufacturer. You’re enjoying the beautiful new computer and you fire up Microsoft Office so you can dive into the 1 terabyte storage plus apps that you purchased. […]
I’ve been using browsers since Mosiac (Marc Andreessen – NCSA, University of Illinois), AOL (whatever that was!), and Netscape (N*tscrape) were the champs. Then came IE (Internet Exploder), Mozilla Firefox (which started as Phoenix and Firebird) and Chrome (login, trust us!) and Opera (it’s faster!). […]
Hello Firefox 57! Yep I’ve made the switch from Google Chrome back to Firefox. I’ve wanted to make the switch for a while and Mozilla’s latest release, Firefox Quantum, provided the motivation. Fast (really fast, like 2x as fast as their last version), light, […]
Naming convention. Naming convention – Something you discuss again the next day.
Issue: You possess an audio or video file that will not play on your favorite device or software. Solution: VLC Media Player! What is: VLC Media Player… other than awesome!? Download: VLC Media Player for Mac, PC or Mobile Steps to convert an audio or video […]
Issue: Your Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows 10 Mobile can’t get past a solid pale blue screen at startup. You’ve got the blue startup screen of death! Solutions: Forced Restart, battery & SIM removal and re-seat, or a full reset (all […]
So Google says everyone needs SSL and it is so. I’m getting alerts from left and right advising that I’m not in compliance with the mighty Googles. Yeah I have a contact form or two… so lets lock em down with some completely free […]
Do you have an application or service that subjects you to advertisements, annoying slow and ugly advertisements within a product you’ve already paid for? Yeah me too. It really started when my Epson printer would display HTML errors as it tried to reach a […]
If for whatever reason your ride, run or walk gets divided up into two or more Strava “activities” you can easily combine them into a single event to view your combined time, avg speed etc as a single activity. 1) Export your data as […]
No Jiggle? No problem! Just a little confusing with iOS 10 and iPhone 6s or 7. Issue: You tap and hold an App Icon but instead of “jiggling” it opens a 3d app menu. You repeat this several times despite the result, maybe it […]
Yeah yeah I know I know – Windows Phone is dead. It’s over there on the heap with Zune, Music Pass, Video Editor, Vista and MS Bob. But some of us still love and use the Nokia or Microsoft handsets running Windows 8.1 (the […]
Issue: The full Start Menu opens when waking your computer from sleep mode. This behavior is more of an annoyance than an issue, and an odd one at that as sleep by nature indicates you’re continuing where you left off. Solution Right click or touch […]
Issue: Attempting to install RealTek Audio Drivers for Windows 10 leads to an endless uninstall/install loop. This happens with RealTek audio drivers from manufacturers like Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus or directly from RealTek. The install loop happens due to the new Windows 10 Driver […]
Six shots from five nights – vacation 2017. Shot with Microsoft Lumia 950
Advertisements. For Microsoft products. On the lock screen, on the task bar, in OneDrive, in your browser and in file frickin explorer. Seriously Microsoft?
Issue: Thunderbird fails at the authentication stage of adding an 0365 Exchange email account. Your email address and password are confirmed and correct. The issue is Exchange requires an Active Sync or EWS Exchange Web Services connection which ThunderBird doesn’t natively support. Solution – install […]
Issue: Attempting to upgrade Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 generates Failed to Fetch errors and the process aborts. The cause is custom PPA (Personal Package Archives) sources that are used for some software, in my case FMPEG. Solution: Check your sources.list or sources.list.d files for the […]
Threaded email on iOS 10 is kinda shady. So I thought I’d give Outlook a try – very nice save one thing, contacts… Issue: Exchange contacts are only available within Outlook on iOS – they’re not available to the iOS default Contacts app as they are […]
Issue: Several Lenovo laptop models have had issues returning from sleep, suspend or hibernation mode. An affected laptop may be fine one day but wont power on the next. In this state the Power LED indicator light may do nothing when pressed, or may […]
You know how no one knows how to take a screenshot? Windows Key + Shift + S = screenshot heaven! You’re welcome!
Gallery of Architectural Photography – updated randomly and often… Monadnock – Chicago – Wikipedia page | Architecture Gallery here
Issue: The default Windows 10 lock screen uses Windows Spotlight which streams a feed of excellent photography but… also displays Microsoft Store offerings, messages and may display ads. If this annoys you follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight and you’ll have a cleaner, […]